


Overhook

by Argyle



Series: Catch as Catch Can [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rehabilitation, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1653932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A secret can twist your guts and rend you clean and send you tumbling, and that's just for starters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overhook

Steve has a secret. It's been so long since he could make that claim, since he had something he didn't want plastered on the side of a building in ten foot-high letters, something there would be no trace of to later be summarized in a textbook— and longer still since he had something worth keeping for himself.

Long enough that he forgot what it's like, that a secret can twist your guts and rend you clean and send you tumbling.

That it can hurt. That it can be dangerous.

Once, a secret made him jump out of a plane and march alone, headstrong, into an enemy stronghold. And it was nothing. He would've taken the risk even if hadn't equally been a chance for him to prove his worth to Peggy and Howard and Phillips and the rest. Or more simply: for Bucky, he would've done whatever it took.

*

"You can stay here," Steve says. "If you want."

Bucky moves with deliberate slowness, turns the coffee mug in his hands but doesn't drink from it. He looks at the floor. He looks up.

And it's the same deliberate slowness Steve had seen in the Winter Soldier when they fought on the causeway and in the helicarrier, the precise execution of motion, dexterity, like he was a vessel for his mission; like his mission was already complete.

"I have a spare bedroom. And you could—"

"No."

Steve swallows. "All right," he says. Okay. Too fast, too soon, but he wants this so _badly_ and Bucky is dirty and strung-out and there's a wildness behind his still gaze that Steve remembers well enough. And so: "How about breakfast?"

*

The thing is—Well. To begin with, Steve doesn't think something like the truth can be pliable. It's brass tacks. Fundamentally sound. Even if acknowledging it calls for a hell of a lot more guts than most people are ready to offer, even if it's nearly impossible to say out loud, it doesn't mean it can't be a good thing.

Or nuanced.

And so the thing is this: Captain America is aiding and abetting the Winter Soldier, a documented enemy of the state. Steve Rogers stands in his own kitchen with the man who was Bucky Barnes. A guy from Brooklyn downs and refills his cup of coffee for the third time just to keep busy, to keep himself from impulsively reaching forward for his best pal's hand, to stop his fingers before they find a place on his own skin to pinch. Because he doesn't want to wake up; not from this.

The day before, in the graveyard with Sam and Natasha, with Fury, Steve knew he'd do whatever it took to find Bucky. Then Natasha gave him the file. He spent six hours tucked in a diner booth reading and rereading every memo and missive, inspecting each photo. And he knew. He'd scour the world. He'd call out and out until someone called back.

Leave it to Bucky to find him first.

*

For each of them: two eggs over easy, two thick slices of bacon, and two pieces of toast. The toast has nearly been burned to charcoal because Steve still sticks the bread on a fork and shoves it under the broiler, close to the flame. And the eggs are almost over hard because he gets distracted when Bucky moves to the window to peek through the blinds. The bacon's perfect.

"All right." Steve sets the loaded plates on the counter, "Bon appétit."

Bucky doesn't move until Steve does, sliding into the chair closer to the door. Steve makes a sandwich of his meal. The butter runs down his chin and he wipes at it with the back of his hand, and he can tell without looking that Bucky is watching him. Bucky meanwhile hasn't touched his food. He picked up his fork but then stopped, his knuckles going white with his grip.

"I know it's hardly gourmet…" Steve trails off. He clears his throat. "It's fine. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. Just—"

"The smell. It's… familiar."

Steve waits for Bucky to continue, watches Bucky's chest move with the slow in-out of his breath. "A good kind of familiar?"

Bucky narrows his eyes. Just for a moment, but Steve can almost hear the cogs working in Bucky's brain, the spark of a connection nearly made.

He remembers a comment Fury made after he woke up in the recovery room that had all the trappings of '44 but none of the truth: _"We had the light right. The décor. But the smell? The scientists in charge of setting that place up knew that the olfactory nerve is closely associated with memory and the perception of place, but what the hell did they know about what 1944 smelled like?"_

_"You do realize, sir, that it was the radio that tipped me off?"_

As luck would have it, Fury _had_ realized. But the idea stuck with Steve, so much so that wherever he went he couldn't help but be aware of the things a whiff of fresh bread taken in on one of his predawn runs, or the stench of a diesel engine, could summon. And eggs and bacon and toast summoned nothing if not this: Bucky snaking into his oil-stained coverall while Steve cooked breakfast in their measly excuse for a kitchenette. Maybe Bucky would be hung over. Maybe Steve would be a little light in the head, coming down with a cold but not admitting it. Regardless, he'd insist on sending Bucky out with a buttery sandwich wrapped in wax paper, and Bucky would kiss him long and deep for his trouble. Bucky tasted like coffee and cigarettes and nothing if not Bucky himself.

Steve feels a pang in his chest.

And now Bucky says, "I don't know." Then he adjusts his grip and spears his eggs onto one of the pieces of toast. Deliberate – he sets the bacon on top of the eggs – slowness – and then caps it with the other piece of toast. Then he takes a bite.


End file.
